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" It's a great thing that the United States has given the rest of the world - no other country has given such great popular music to the Far East and Europe. When I play those great countries, a lot of times, the audience starts singing the songs with me. They know them. They love them. "

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" I respected Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. Those were my heroes, and they were 10 years older than I was. "

Tony Bennett

Than

Heroes

Those

" I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs. Today, record companies are failing because they are putting their accent just on the young, and I think that's rather silly. "

Tony Bennett

Today

Young

" I loved Art Tatum! And, through him, and other different jazz musicians, I actually found my technique. "

" Every day feels like just starting out because I still have so much more to learn. "

Tony Bennett

Every Day

Learn

" I still feel that I can get better somehow. And I search for it all of the time. "

Tony Bennett

I Can

Feel

" Every week, as an 11-year-old kid, I would tune in to what was really the first American Idol-type program, a radio show called 'Major Bowes' Amateur Hour.' The winning group on the evening of September 8, 1935, was called the Hoboken Four, and their spokesman was Frank Sinatra, then aged 19. "

" In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him. "

" When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops being art. "

" When you get older, you don't have to eat a lot. I get my rest and sleep very well at night. It keeps me very balanced. "

Tony Bennett

Rest

Night

" More than anybody else I'd like to thank Count Basie for teaching me how to perform. "

Tony Bennett

Than

" To me, life is a gift, and it's a blessing to just be alive. And each person should learn what a gift it is to be alive no matter how tough things get. "

Tony Bennett

Gift

Tough

" I think one of the reasons I'm popular again is because I'm wearing a tie. You have to be different. "

" I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world. "

" I have grown to appreciate the power of believing in myself and of always having faith in myself. I rarely look back; instead, I always look forward. There is so much of life that we miss when we wallow in regret. "

" The United States created the best popular songs that were ever written, and from the 1920s to the 1940s, it was a renaissance period. It stopped in 1950. "

" For many years, I've always been attached to what they call the Great American Songbook, and Kern was a great leader of that because he had the classical training of Europe. He impressed all the greatest composers, like Cole Porter and Gershwin. They couldn't believe he was writing the songs he was writing. "

" I want to try to prove that at 100, I could sing as well as I was singing when I was 45 or 43. "

" I loved my mom so much because she had to work on a penny just to put food on the table... During the Depression in the United States, everybody had a tough time. And I was so hurt because she was crying that she didn't have any food for us for Thanksgiving. "

" Sinatra invited me once to his birthday party in L.A. I was young, and I felt great about it. But when I got there, the Rat Pack were all in the kitchen laughing their heads off. "

Tony Bennett

Great

Birthday

" Performers should really go to the best schools, like Lady Gaga, you know, she went to NYU and had great teachers... It's best to really study your technique as much as you possibly can so you can have a long career instead of a quick one that's a failure. "

" I've been very fortunate. I'm doing what I love, and I'm getting away with it, you know? "

" Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me. "

Tony Bennett

Life

My Life

" I was taught never to compromise: to never sing a cheap song. I never look down at the audience and think that they are ignorant or think that I'm more intelligent than they are. To think otherwise is totally incorrect and runs contrary to everything I was raised to believe. "

" I was possessed with a wonderful example of my Italian American family. They would come over and join us every Sunday, all my aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces, and I would sing for them. "

Tony Bennett

Sunday

American

" I'll never retire. "

Tony Bennett

Retire

Never

" I still have a lot to learn. I'm concentrating on learning a lot more about music. "

" I've been so fortunate because I never really had ups and downs as far as my career. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I've been sold out all over the world. "

" I had the greatest time of my life in England for a couple of years, and Robert Farnon made some of the best music I've ever been around. "

" It sounds so simple, but if you just be yourself, you're different than anyone else. "

" When Sinatra said, 'For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer I've ever heard,' it changed my career completely. He was my best friend, and I was his best friend... but I was never part of the Rat Pack. "